Contractors

I hate dealing with home improvement contractors. With a couple of exceptions, everytime you want to get someone to come and do something at your house, you end up having to chase something up, deal with lateness and missed deadlines etc.

Our installation of our new wood stove has been no different. When we bought the stove, we were told that the permit approval process and ordering of our stove should take two weeks, then it is a one day installation. There were two components - the actual stove and the tile that we picked out for them to build a new hearth around it (both for looks and to ensure it met the building code). We selected our tile and they said they would call us when everything was ready. Two weeks went by so I called back. I was told that they had everything however they were waiting on us to select our tile. When I told him this had been done and he checked the file, he found this information and set up an installation date of this past Tuesday (another 10 days beyond the initial two week estimate). I made it clear that if there was an issue with getting the tile to let me know as I did not want this to hold anything up.

Anyway, Tuesday comes and they cannot find a box of tiles. Apparently New Jersey ran out of tiles over the past month. So they installed the stove but could not build the hearth. Mindy and I went out on Tuesday night, purchased a box of tiles and then rescheduled this for Wednesday. All seemed to be going well, only another one day delay it seemed. Then we were told that we needed to call the township to get a final inspection before we could use the stove...and they only do inspections on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Mindy called on Thursday morning but they were already fully scheduled, so we have to wait until Tuesday to begin using it. So all-in-all, while it looks great and we are very happy with it, a two week estimate has turned into almost five weeks of dealing with these people to get this done.

Going to the tile place has also led to us buying some new flooring for our kitchen and sun-room. We were not happy with the tile and had been thinking of changing it, so seeing the options available, we made the decision to get this done as well. We decided to go with a vinyl fake-wood finish. I think this will be a nicer look and also supposedly quite durable as well. So I guess we will have more fun with contractors over the next couple of months. After this, a new back fence and we should be done...at least for a while.